Who Else Will Save The World?
by Omegalomaniac
Summary: Sometimes, you just have to carry on... Post Exit Wounds, spoilers for S2.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **If I owned Torchwood, then I wouldn't be here writing this. Unfortunately, I don't.

**Author's Notes: **After watching Exit Wounds (and crying), I just needed to write this. My first fic here, constructive criticism welcomed.

* * *

Gwen had been ordered home by Jack, eventually. He and Ianto had been busy tidying up Tosh and Owen's stuff, whilst she'd been walking around the Hub in a daze. 'Gwen, go home, please'. It sounded like a request, but she knew that Jack wouldn't have taken no for an answer.

So, she'd gone home. Sat at the kitchen table, staring into space, silent tears streaking down her cheeks. Rhys had taken her into the lounge, they'd cuddled up on the sofa together, silently watching the TV.

The news had been on, though Rhys had turned it over when reports of the injured and dead made Gwen burst into tears again. Now they were watching some meaningless quiz show, trying to take their thoughts away from the events of earlier. It wasn't working.

Sirens were screeching outside, ambulances faithfully picking up the dead and wounded, fire engines putting out the fires that John had unwillingly started, police trying to calm the hysterical relatives of those who had died that day.

The noise of the TV was just an annoying buzz, not enough to distract her, nor stop her from dwelling on thoughts of the devastation that had occurred. Gwen knew her job was dangerous, Jack had once told her that no Torchwood agents lived past their mid-30s, well, none except Jack anyways. She'd known that they would have died eventually, everyone dies eventually. Except Jack. But, had she thought that it would be so soon? No. That was her honest answer. Like a fool, she'd believed that together they could defend the Earth forever, always saving it in the nick of time, escaping unscathed. Those had been her thoughts when she had first joined Torchwood. Those had been her thoughts up until now. And today, even after finding that Jack had disappeared and Weevils were loose all over Cardiff, she'd believed that they would all survive, that they could stop whoever had done this, and return to normal life. Well, as normal as life at Torchwood usually was, which wasn't really that normal if you thought about it.

Shows how much she knew.

What if she was next? Oh, when she had first joined Torchwood, she had known the risks, but had never really stopped to think about the consequences if she died. What would Rhys do? Her mum? Her dad? How would she die? What story would Jack invent for her? That she'd died in a car accident? A fire?

So many questions, so little answers. For every one that she tried to answer, another popped up, and then another, and another.

Owen. Even though he'd been a total and utter idiot - you couldn't say anything less - she'd still loved him, she loved all the team. They were like family to her. It felt like she had just lost a brother and a sister.

Tosh. She'd always been a good friend, they'd shared a couple of laughs, though she had always been just a little too quiet, too secluded. And then, in her last message, she'd finally admitted to Owen that she loved him - ironic that he had been already dead, and would never see that message.

Maybe Tosh had managed to talk to Owen before he died. Maybe they had told each other their feelings after all. They'd never gone on that date though. So many things that could have been, wiped out in a second. It just made Gwen feel that tiny bit happier for what she had, a husband who loved her.

Maybe she'd never have kids, the Torchwood life was too dangerous, but at least she had someone to care for, and who cared for her in return. Jack and Ianto had each other but Tosh and Owen had never dared to become anything more than friends. She supposed that was a life lesson - when you find something or someone, cling onto it or them and never let go, life was too short not to.

She sniffed quietly and looked up at the ceiling, the whirling thoughts dashing around her head drowning out the sounds of the TV and the sirens. Life was too short and was over in the blink of an eye. Death came too quickly, the darkness rushing to envelop you, to snuff out the flickering flame of life like blowing out a candle.

But they would carry on. Her, Ianto and Jack. They'd carry on nevertheless. Maybe they would slip back into a sort of routine, but it wouldn't be the same. Life carries on, but those you lose are never forgotten. Lost forever, but definitely not forgotten. The spark of life is much too precious to throw away and so you quietly carry on, slowly managing to wade past the grief, but never completely forgetting. You cry for the past, cry for those who are lost, and then you carry on. Because you have to.

After all, who else is going to save the world?


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **Still don't own anything.

* * *

Ianto was running on automatic. His hands were carefully folding and tidying, but his mind was drifting, wandering. Both Tosh and Owen gone... It wouldn't be the same here anymore. It could never be the same.

He lingered on thoughts of the past, the good times that they had spent together, the time that Owen had got himself drunk and -

No, he needed to stop thinking about them. They were gone, and nothing they could do would bring them back. No amount of wishful thinking could bring back the dead.

Oh, of course they had quarrelled, especially when Jack had disappeared, but in the end they cared for each other. They were more than just a team, they were a family. And now two of them were dead.

He shook his head, as if to try and physically clear the thoughts away. He needed to concentrate on the job in hand, not on the happy times that could never again be visited, never again be -

No. Stop thinking about them. Think about the now, not the then.

Right. Back to business.

Owen seemed to have thrown out all the food and other things that living people would need, so Ianto's job wasn't as big as he'd thought it might be. There were still the clothes though, but they could go to a charity shop -

God Owen, you could have hidden your secret stack of magazines somewhere other than underneath a pile of clothes. Though maybe he'd hidden them there because he knew that no-one would go near the dirty heap of clothes willingly...

Magazines, bin. Clothes, charity shop. What would they do with the furniture and the flat? There wasn't anyone to give it to really...

Ianto leaned back on the bed, which didn't look like it had been slept in. It creaked as he silently stared up at the ceiling. 'What if' were the two worst words in the English language, but that didn't stop him from thinking them. What if.

He'd seen the destruction that had happened at Canary Wharf and, somehow, what had happened today had shaken him just as much as what had happened then. Strange how the slaughter of thousands could be dwarfed - well, through his eyes - by the loss of just a few.

When Lisa had died, he'd managed to carry on, through the pain and grief. It had been so hard, shielding his real feelings from the rest of the team, hiding the emotions which churned inside him. But he'd finally got past the stage of not caring anymore, when he'd rather have died than suffered another breath in a world missing the one person he'd tried so hard to save.

Bottling up your emotions never worked. Ianto had watched so many angst-filled TV shows with people pretending to be over someone, but he knew that life wasn't like that. You never really got over the loss of someone, no-one ever had their 'happily ever after'. That was why as soon as he'd got home he'd cried his eyes out.

As the tears streaked down his cheeks, in a reminder of past times, his thoughts flickered back to times when they'd all been together. The times when there hadn't been the worry of an imminent alien invasion, (for some reason there didn't seem to be so many of those...) the times when they'd tried not to think of what the future would bring. For they'd known, oh, they'd known.

Memories, both bad and good - they couldn't be separated now, the fine line between them seemed to snap with death, why just remember the happy times? We weren't just defined by the good things we did, so why just remember those? Happy and sad, swirling together in one big mass of pain, slipping away like water down a plughole - were rushing around his head, pounding, raging, screaming to be let out.

They'd all known that it couldn't last forever, that it would end sooner rather than later. Wasn't that their job though? Pushing away the inevitable, striving to save the human race, surviving against all odds? Strange how they could save everyone but themselves, everyone except the ones they loved, the ones they cared for.

Somehow he'd carry on. Somehow he'd manage to struggle on, day after day. That was a lesson he'd learnt before. Sometimes you just had to let them go. Life wasn't fair, and it never would be.

They needed to be strong, though. If not for them then all the people they had saved and all the people they would save.

After all, who else is going to save the world?


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Notes: **One more chapter after this...

* * *

After ordering Gwen home, Jack had retreated to his office. Ianto had disappeared off to Owen's, claiming that he needed to sort stuff out, but Jack knew that it was just an excuse to get out of the Hub.

This place harboured too many memories, but Jack had no other place to go. He didn't belong anywhere, and never would. Outliving all the people he met, watching his friends age and die in front of him. Being a fixed point in time and space certainly had it's advantages, but they were far outweighed by having to suffer through losing everyone he cared about.

Slowly he stood up and walked out the room, not caring where he ended up. Too many had died today, too many lives had been wasted, thrown away.

Before, police sirens had been screaming out into the air, penetrating the thick ceiling of the Hub, but now... Now it was almost silent, even quieter than usual, if that was possible, the eerie silence pressing down on him, stifling him. It wasn't as if he wasn't used to being alone in the Hub - he usually was at night, though lately Ianto had started to stay more often - but for some reason it seemed... Empty. Forgotten.

Jack looked up, sighing as he realised where his feet had taken him. His hand reached out towards the cold metal of the drawer, hovering in front of it, not daring to move forward the next few millimetres. John had been right. What was the point of keeping Gray here, locked away in storage, hidden from the world? If he woke him up in a couple of hundred years, would anything change? Would he be forgiven, everything suddenly, miraculously, forgotten? No. He knew that would never happen. It would never be the same again. Everything changes - no matter how hard you may try to keep it the same.

All of time at his feet, but it's still not enough. Gray could never forgive him - not for this. And he deserved it. He deserved everything. Leaving his own brother to the mercy (ha) of those creatures, - monsters - abandoning him. He'd searched, but not for long enough. After a while he'd stopped, tried to forget about his past, buried the memories. But nothing could ever really be forgotten. Lost maybe, but never really forgotten. And that's how people live on, even after they leave this world. Through memories, both good and bad, happy and sad.

Too many had died today, though that wasn't an excuse. He should put Gray out of his misery, not keep him locked up here like some experiment. It was inhuman - keeping someone against their will, stuffed in a drawer, kept in the dark for years and years.

But... Gray deserved it... Didn't he?

No. He didn't. Jack had said that he forgave him, and that was the truth. No-one deserved this, not even... Him. Gray was his brother, not some random insane psycho who decided to blow Cardiff up on a whim (God knew there seemed to be enough of them around). But what else was there to do?

He'd just have to carry on, the death of all the people who had died today weighing down on him. It was all his fault. All this had happened because he'd not tried hard enough - because he'd given up.

Pulling his hand away, Jack took a step back and turned to walk back to his office. He would never be able to kill him. He was too selfish for that, he'd lost too much and needed something to anchor him here (not that he could ever leave, his problem with not being able to die seemed to rule out any notion of suicide).

Everything changes and everything has it's time. Except him. Timeless and homeless, doing his best to protect those he cared about - but even his best wasn't good enough sometimes. They'd have to carry on though, him, Ianto and Gwen. There was no-one else here to do their job.

After all, who else is going to save the world?


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Notes: **Finished! Reviews would be nice (hint hint).

* * *

With a soundless gasp, Owen got up - or tried to, but for some reason his mind didn't seem to be attached to his body. He looked around, but he was surrounded by some kind of thick white mist, swirling around him in seemingly random patterns, blocking all his surroundings from view - if there was anything here except for him and the white mist. This certainly looked real - felt real - but there was a sort of dreamlike quality to everything, everything was hazy, but at the same time as clear as day. It was like when you were underwater, or when it was raining heavily, everything seemed blurry. Whenever he tried to focus on the mist, tried to squint past it, it seemed to shift, melding together into one huge mass in front of him, but before he could look another way, it moved back into it's original position. This was hopeless. He'd just have to wait...

After what seemed like hours, though could have been seconds (he'd lost track of time) the mist slowly dissipated, revealing... Grey. Grey walls, grey ceiling, grey... Ladder!? He was in the sewers!

Again he tried to get up, this time succeeding. He grinned, but his smile faded as he realised that he seemed to be a bit high up, almost touching the roof of the sewer, and he definitely didn't remember being that tall. He looked down and gasped when he didn't see himself. This was starting to get really freaky - and he'd seen a lot of freaky things working for Torchwood. He may have been dead, but the last time he'd looked, he'd definitely had a body. Wait... Dead! The meltdown... He should be dead. Proper dead. Not undead dead. There probably wasn't a medical term for someone who'd died twice. Maybe he should make one up... Dead dead? Deadead? Deaded?

Apparently dead people could still get headaches.

A loud splashing noise came from behind him and Owen turned, wondering what could be down here in the sewers with him. Oh. Of course. Weevils.

He grinned as the Weevils bowed down before him, slightly backing off as they looked upwards. Maybe being dead-dead (hmm...) wasn't that bad after all. Though, if he could have had the choice of who he could be ruler of, it wouldn't have been Weevils, that was for sure. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.

With a smirk, Owen turned and floated off down the tunnel, followed by a horde of Weevils. Stuff Torchwood, he was King of the Weevils now. Maybe he could order them to go annoy Jack...

After all, he didn't need to save the world anymore.


End file.
